Joining Rice and associate head coach Justin Hutson on the bench will be former Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer, the Sun learned on Tuesday evening. Schroyer accepted the position on Tuesday and will sign his contract with UNLV on Wednesday.

Schroyer was let go on Feb. 8 at Wyoming after amassing a 49-68 record over four seasons in Laramie. That, however, is a rare blemish on a pretty strong overall coaching résumé.

Schroyer, 39, is originally from Maryland and still has strong East Coast and international recruiting ties. He's held assistant coaching jobs at BYU (1997-2001), Wyoming (2001-02) and Fresno State (2005-07), while enjoying one successful head coaching run at Portland State (2002-05).

BYU was also rumored to be pursuing Schroyer for the vacancy on its staff following Rice's departure for his alma mater.

Schroyer, along with Hutson, will add both youth and intensity to the sidelines for the Rebels, who still have two staff positions left to be filled. One is another assistant coaching post, while the other is for a Director of Basketball Operations.

An offer is already out to Rebels legend Stacey Augmon for the assistant coaching job. Augmon, currently an assistant with the NBA's Denver Nuggets, won't make an official decision on whether to take it known until after his season is over. The Nuggets trail the Oklahoma City Thunder 3-1 in their best-of-seven first round series in the NBA playoffs, and will again try to stave off elimination on Wednesday night.

Other candidates for that position include former UNLV staffers Jay Spoonhour and Mike Peck. Peck is currently the head coach at Findlay Prep in the Henderson foothills.

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Knee-jerk reaction - negative, but after a few mins I think it is a decent move, a former HC with that much assistant experience will make a fine assistant, until he finds another HC position. Hopefully the hire doesn't effect Augmon's decision to come back. www.RebelReign.com

Augmon and Peck would be good additions. Augmon would be a big name, former NBA, Olympic, and college star, with ties to the university while Peck might be able to help recruit Findlay Prep stars to the program. If Rice could somehow lock up Bishop Gorman with his ties to his brother and get at least some 4-5 star talent coming out of Findlay Prep instead of the 3 star scrubs we have now that would be awesome.

Not sure why we would be excited about this hire. Was not impressed with Schroyer's coaching or recruiting prowess at Wyoming. Maybe I am missing something here but I do not see how this is a good move. Ryan - is the staff anywhere close to filling the 3 available scholarships? Have not heard anything about who the new staff is zeroing in on.

Im usually very ppositive about the Rebs,as I am a ridiculously loyal fan of 25 years....just dont miss games,......HOWEVER,,,,not to be negative here, but Sure looks like Rice could use a grey hair on his bench...a fatherly type if you will....back east ties a plus....You know the type.....Sage wisdom,,,etc etc...MAx Good,...Tex Winter....etc........But then again who am I?????

I like this hire. Rice wanted someone with head coaching experience and recruiting ties outside of the west coast. Schroyer is from the Baltimore/DC area and went to a really big time school back there too. One thing I do know is that Schroyer adds some passion and fire on the sidelines as opposed to the previous set of assistants who sat there with bored and dumbfounded looks on their faces. My buddy called Schroyer the "loudest coach in the MWC."

I do agree with Paul that I would have liked to see someone with a bit more experience or grey hair, but Schroyer is still a good addition to this staff. Still have my fingers crossed for Augmon, but that leaves us with a very young staff. Good, but young. Peck would be fine in lieu of Augmon, but if he is hired as Director of Basketball Operations, he is not allowed to help with recruiting.

mj20-What 3 star scrubs are you exactly talking about? Any college basketball player on a D-1 roster is not a scrub. Maybe guys haven't developed as we would have liked or maybe they haven't lived up to expectations(yet), but please...scrubs?

Massamba is a SCRUB! For his career at UNLV he has averaged 3.4 ppg and 1.9 rpg. That's pretty weak considering he is a 6'10" forward/center. Carlos Lopez looks as if he is going to be going down the same path as Massamba. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't what UNLV fans and Chuck Findlay were hoping when Findlay Prep was created. UNLV is missing out on the 5 star recruits like Corey Joseph and picking up on the guys no one else wants from there.

Unlv coaching staff is an all first team mountain west conference assistant team. That's funny I thought we were going for the all first team (national) look. Who's alfreds best assistant, he's next. Haha.

That's a good question about who is unlv recruiting now. All we know for sure is jones, and Carter. I never heard that rice was actually talking to Shabazz, Allen, Shepard, and the other Findlay kid. All we know is who rice is not recruiting, glaze and goss. How about an update on all the kids on justins and daves radar.

mj20-Yeah Massamba's numbers definitely aren't anything great, not even good. But he's a back up. He averaged 15 minutes a game last year. I don't think anyone ever expected him to be an unstoppable force down low. I strongly disagree about Lopez. He had more production and was only a redshirt freshmen last season. You've got think of the system our bigs were in as well. Our team has definitely been all about the guards. Hard to get great stats when you're sharing 1 spot with 2 other guys. And I'm not sure how many stars you were rated with when you came out of high school but I'm pretty sure Massamba would toss you around like a baby doll out on the court. NO ONE ON THE UNLV ROSTER IS A SCRUB!

"While at BYU, Rice offered Allen his first scholarship -- before his sophomore season, and long before Allen became the nation's No. 23 overall prospect by Rivals.com

Rice also offered Carter his first scholarship, realizing the lanky 6-foot-8, 200-pound forward had talent last year during his sophomore year -- when Carter often received little, or no, playing time."

mj20 - Interesting how you can draw conclusions about Carlos Lopez after his first year actually playing college ball. How about we let him get another year under his belt before we start making judgments. There is a lot there to work with as far as skill and I'm confident that the new staff will do wonders with him. I agree that Massamba has been a disappointment, but, like blue, I'm not sure a lot that isn't attributed to the previous staff's lack of player development. To me, it seemed that the only people who showed a decent amount of improvement and development during Kruger's tenure were those that were willing to put in the work themselves in the off season. Let's not forget that the everyone on Kruger's staff were former guards. Who was really supposed to help Massamba or any of the other big guys develop?

It's easy to look at Massamba's overall stats and call him a scrub, but we've all seen flashes of what he can do when he gets his confidence up. I really think that was a huge problem with the "3-Headed Monster" concept. It's difficult to find a good rhythm and get going when you only get 3 or 4 minutes at a time, if that. Not to mention the fact that they were scared to death to play aggressive defense for most of the year because one foul could put them on the bench for a half.

As for recruiting, Rice had already spoken to Goss's parents before NWG even decided to de-commit, so I think it is safe to say that he is recruiting him. Rice was also at Gorman workouts on BYU's behalf only days before he officially got the UNLV job, so I think we can assume that he is talking to and recruiting them as well.

This hire is an embarrassment. I'm sure he will excel at bringing in more SCRUBS to this team to battle Massamba and Chop for the title of "worst Rebel ever". Now we have three guys on the bench that nobody outside the MWC knows. What a joke.

I don't understand this hire at all. As good as the Hutson hire was this is the exact opposite in my opinion. What does Schroyer bring to the staff that will improve the program? So far he has not demonstrated much in the way of coaching ability and his recruiting has been sub par at best (especially when it comes to get players from the east coast).

Someone like former Duquesne and Boston Celtics head coach John Carroll would have been a much better choice. His basketball acumen is well respected in the coaching community and he coaches the powerful New England Playaz AAU program. He would have brought much more to the table in terms of actual coaching and ability to recruit the east coast. I hear Sean Miller at Arizona is considering him for their assistant vacancy.

If you are looking solely for east coast recruiting Jared Grasso of Iona (signed Jio Fontain to Fordham and Michael Glover to Iona) or former Providence and BABC AAU head coach Chris Driscoll (signed Josh Fortune and landed a verbal from Ricardo Ledo) would have been better and I am willing to bet quite a bit cheaper.

The only thing I am hoping for is possibly with his international connections Schroyer may be able to land some player completely under the radar.

Here is to hoping the last two hires are quite a bit better than this one.

Way to think national prominence here Coach Rice. Hiring all former Mountain West assistants just goes to show that this team is making no strides forward whatsoever. Rice is content to be a Mountain West power and that's it. So much for a coaching upgrade. How you hire anyone from Wyoming is just hilarious?!

Canes, I realize the only reason you follow the Rebels is to be negative and troll the comments section of the sun. It's a game. I get it. However, I think a lot of actual rebel fans probably would agree with you on this, even though it's completely ridiculous to expect a first time head coach to go from 3rd in the MWC to a national power house before his team even steps on the floor. It's totally premature to expect either failure or success at this point and it's totally ignorant to base the quality of a coaching staff by studying wikipedia pages. If we have no good recruits and are at .500 three years down the road THEN we can judge the ability of the coaching staff.

I like the youth movement somebody with some fire just another resourceful coach...It seems to me people put way too much emphasis on how many stars espn rates players. With 300 plus D1 basketball programs nobody is going to corner the market. Already you can see and measure the trend of one and done rosters versus team concept.I believe what Coach Rice is preaching "consistency". rebel style of play both offensively and defensely.

Good hire, Shroyer fire on the bench will be a nice contrast with Rice's low key deamnor. I would really would love to see Auguman, he adds NBA experience on a college coaching staff. Peck would be a nice backup plan.

Let's also not be too quick to judge how Schroyer will be as an assistant by how his tenure as a head coach went. The professional and college ranks in many sports are riddled with coaches who are outstanding assistants, but just not cut out for being a head coach. But great assistants always get a shot at being a head coach, so Schroyer must have been doing something right to even get an opportunity to be a head coach at the D1 level.

Uhhhh Im not sure what games some of you were watching but Lopez was the most talented player on the court at times....especially for the big men......It was quite obvious that he had some polished post moves...up and unders, turnaround jump shot.....hook shot......finished strong....nice ball fakes..........twice as polished as quintrell.......Lopez has huge upside over the next couple of years........He was obviously a little excitable at times but that was to be expected.......And maybe more impotantly he was the only one besides TRE to show some FIGHT at time.......his elbows got some mileage......and some excitement as well.............Hois shotblocking was his weakest part.......but overall I really liked him.